Almost any new head coach would have been an upgrade for the Bears after Matt Eberflus imploded under the weight of every form of mismanagement imaginable. Ben Johnson already has made necessary changes to sharpen virtually every aspect of how the Bears operate.
But he’s betting on quarterback Caleb Williams, and there’s no way he’ll win without getting him on track. That reality undermined Johnson’s debut Monday night as the Vikings rallied to beat the Bears 27-24 at Soldier Field.
“Just inconsistent,” Johnson said of the offense.
He elaborated that the Bears were “not on the same page in the running game.” And while he liked how Williams played at the start of the game, the completions “certainly felt like they dried up a little bit,” he said.
The game ended with fans booing as time ran out on the Bears’ last-ditch scramble to move downfield with laterals.
Johnson has a long way to go as a first-time head coach, as his counterpart across the field reminded him. It’s easy to forget that the Vikings’ Kevin O’Connell has the third-best winning percentage among active coaches. It’s also easy to see how he has done it. It seems like no matter who lines up at quarterback for the Vikings, he gets them rolling. J.J. McCarthy, making his debut, completed just 7 of 12 passes for 56 yards through three quarters and threw a pick-six. But he turned it around by finishing with two touchdown passes and a 98.5 passer rating.
Johnson, meanwhile, couldn’t steer Williams out of his nosedive. After completing his first 10 passes, Williams hit on just eight of his next 20 as the game slipped away. A late touchdown drive proved inconsequential.
It gets harder from here. Up next after Johnson opened with a nationally televised game against a division rival is a return to Ford Field on Sunday to face the Lions — Super Bowl contenders for whom Johnson was offensive coordinator the last three seasons. The Lions and their fans will be eager to let him have it after he left them.
“There will be a wave of emotions going back to that stadium for the first time in a long time as the opponent,” Johnson told the Sun-Times recently. “I know what we’re going to be walking into. That’s going to be a playoff-like atmosphere from a crowd perspective. They’re going to be loud and saying some things that maybe aren’t so nice [to me]. I just look forward to seeing our guys respond to that.”
Johnson’s former boss, Lions coach Dan Campbell, said Sunday he “hadn’t really thought much about him,” although that’s sure to change as two coaches who were close in Detroit prepare to face each other as rivals.
“He’ll be who he is and I’m going to be who I am, and we’ll play ball,” Campbell said.
After the two NFC North matchups, Johnson gets a supposed lull with a home game against the Cowboys and a visit to Las Vegas to meet the Raiders heading into the bye week. But either or both of those teams could be better than expected, and there are pressure-packed storylines in each.
When the Bears host the Cowboys, Eberflus will be there as their defensive coordinator. Imagine the backlash if Johnson’s offense struggles that day. The next week, Johnson faces a future Hall of Famer in Raiders coach Pete Carroll.
Such is the challenge in any rebuild: Even if the Bears get parts of it right, other teams are trying to do the same thing.
And the ones who nail down the coach-quarterback connection usually get there faster.
